Half-Earth: Our Planet’s Fight for Life

Wilson describes scientific naturalists, of which he is one. In contrast to other scientists, they do not go into science to make a living. They are some of the hardest working, most underpaid, and least competitive of all scientists. There is also a general sense of comradery among them, which Wilson attributes to the “virtually unlimited number of discoveries that await” in the natural world (96). Scientific naturalists are interested in finding missing evolutionary links as well as rediscovering species presumed to be extinct.

Wilson utilizes one of his “favorite fantasies” to illustrate “the passion of the naturalist” (99). In his fantasy, he is paddling down a channel of the Choctawhatchee River, which flows through southeast Alabama and the Florida Panhandle and empties into the Gulf of Mexico. He hears and then sees two large ivory-billed woodpeckers. The last sighting of these woodpeckers was in the mid-20th century. According to Wilson, they were “one of the most spectacular birds of America” (99). The clear-cutting of trees drove them to extinction. They were so large that people who saw them would exclaim “Lord God, what is that” (99), and thus they were referred to as “the Lord God bird” (99). For Wilson, all naturalists want their “Lord God moment” (99), in which they discover or rediscover a species, adding to humanity’s rich experience of the natural world.

Wilson continues to explore conservation science, focusing on taxonomy and natural history, both of which are critical to the field. He reemphasizes the current weaknesses in ecosystems studies, including the fact that most species remain unknown and the lack of understanding of species interaction within an ecosystem. For Wilson, the field cannot advance “without a solid knowledge of the species composing one ecosystem at a time” (104). Taxonomy is central to this advancement, since it is the branch of science that focuses on classification of organisms, including their “anatomy, DNA, behavior, habitat, and other biological traits” (104).

Natural history refers to the scientific study of species primarily through observation. To Wilson, “the history of each species can be considered an epic” (106). By observing a species, scientists learn about the niche they occupy and their relationship to other species. Species do not live in isolation from one another. As a result, when humans allow one extinction, “we erase the web of relationships it maintained in life” (106). Since we do not fully understand how species interact in an ecosystem, Wilson emphasizes that we do not truly understand what impact extinction has on other species and the ecosystem. Mathematical models attempt to understand these interactions, but, as Wilson notes, the natural world is too complex.

Wilson provides several examples of peculiar species interactions, such as “giant killers.” Giant killers refer to a species of ant in South America that uses ambush teams to kill insects that are over 13,000 times the weight of an individual ant. These examples further illustrate the complexities of species interactions within an ecosystem.